/r/askhistorians has, for some time, enjoyed it's autonomy on reddit. We have always told the admins that we do not care to become a default. We will never become a default, because we don't want to be that aligned with reddit, as it currently exists. A host of us have a bunch of concerns with reddit as a whole. We just use this space.

Does reddit make money off of our hard work and do we get much in return? Yes, I assume that they do, and, no, we do not. (Hey, that's also true for academia, but that's another story for another time.) These are all volunteer hours. I won't even put this on my CV nor will I tell most academics that I do this, because of the reputation that reddit has. Each and every single one of us gives our time because we love history. We love education. And we detest and loathe ignorance born out of misunderstanding history.

We will remain open for business. We will do so because we are educators, and we do not want to deprive anyone of an opportunity to learn.

Hey everybody, just chiming in to let you all know that we will not be going dark. We are, and will continue to be, open for business.

I expected this post.

I think /r/AskHistorians is very uninvolved. It doesn't want to be a default to the best of my knowledge, looks to keep quality high, and is really a site within Reddit rather than a place people just stop by to see while browsing other subreddits. It's got a much more detached feel. I can't see it going private, as the moderators have said, precisely because it seeks to avoid the drama and stay detached.

As long as the site stays up, it's likely AskHistorians will too.

i asked them if they had an archive because i like reading through past questions. they said they aren't making the subreddit go down but I'm worried about the whole website going down. there's a lot of good info here

I don't think I'm well informed on this - Why is this a concern? What did I miss?

Just wondering if there are any contingency plans should reddit turn into a ghost town. This sub is easily the best part of it for me, but it would fail to function if there weren't people asking interesting questions for the experts here to answer. Maybe someone should squat this name on voat just in case?

So does this whole situation change anything with the upcomming AMA's?

You just asked a history sub a question about the future.

It seems that the more "serious" subs like /r/syriancivilwar, /r/askhistorians, etc are much less involved. I like that.

To comply with its own rules, this subreddit will go dark over this issue in 20 years.

I sure hope they don't, this is my favorite sub, and the first sub that I subscribed to.

So glad you're not going private. This site and /r/history are 2 sites I visit daily, as well as some of those that have gone private. I understand the protest, but I hope they resolve the issues soon.

I just want to say how much I appreciate this sub. This was my escape from fatpeoplegate, there never seems to be any drama. And to the mods: you guys do a great job, thank you.

Thank you for not attempting to insert yourself into what should be an internal staffing issue.

What does it mean for a subreddit to go dark or private? Why would a subreddit be motivated to do so?

I support the threads that are protesting, and I hope that Reddit can change for the better after this. This sub is my favorite by far, and while I could get behind the idea of it going dark, I ultimately respect the idea of keeping it open for people to learn from. I respect the hard work that the mods put in to make this the awesome forum for learning and debating.

yes!

I must decry the apparent snobbery on display in this thread. There should be no distinction between subs willing to protest and take action and those who don't. I had hoped that the academic and 'serious' parts of Reddit would be those with the most acute aversion to apathy. Unless user-generated content (the life blood of Reddit's admins) is withheld, then the desperately needed changes will not be implemented and the site hosting this sub will continue to degrade and diminish.

I'm disappointed, solidarity is important.